1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a seatbelt reminder system, and more particularly, to a seatbelt reminder system for outputting reminders in a manner associated with respective seats of a motor vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Seatbelts equipped in a motor vehicle generally have the function of holding occupants in their seats when fastened. Thus, in order to prevent the seatbelts from being left unfastened, seatbelt reminder systems are used.
Such systems use, for example, a visible reminder produced by lighting a lamp or an audible reminder produced by sounding a buzzer, to notify occupants of a vehicle that a seatbelt is in an unfastened state.
In such systems, if the reminder is output with respect to each seat, a problem arises in that the driver feels unpleasant in cases where the seatbelts associated with the other seats than the driver's seat are unfastened, for example. A technique of solving the problem has been proposed (Japanese Patent No. 3207595).
The system disclosed in the patent is adapted to output different reminders for different seats, thereby to restrain the occupants from feeling unpleasant.
According to the conventional technique employed in the patent, the reminder for the driver's seat and the reminder for the other seats are output independently. With this technique, however, in cases where the seatbelts of the other seats than the driver's seat are unfastened, for example, where the seatbelts of the rear seats are left unfastened as is often the case, the reminder will still make the occupants feel unpleasant.
Namely, if the reminder for the driver's seat and the reminder for the other seats are output at different times and if the seatbelts of the driver's seat and other seats are left unfastened, the ON patterns of the reminders may overlap in part or in their entirety, with the result that the occupants are annoyed much by the reminders. Further, in such cases, it is difficult to have the occupants notice that the seatbelts are unfastened.